The Impact of Dialogic Teaching on English Language Learners’ Speaking and Thinking Skills

What is di alogic teaching?
The term “dialogic teaching” is particularly associated with Alexander’s (2008) 
focus on tal k between t eachers and students i n t he cl ass room. Alexander grounds 
his approach to dialogue in Bakhtin often quoting the line “if a n answer does not 
give rise to a new question from itself, it falls out of the dialogue” (Bakhtin, 
1986, p. 168). Alexander’s point in using this Bakhtinian definition of dialogue 
is t hat i t i s onl y b y engaging i n l ive di al ogue, either with each ot her, dir ectl y 
with t he t eacher, or vicariousl y b y li stening to others i n di al ogue, t hat st udents
learn to think. Thi s understandi ng of di alogue as a form of open ended shared 
inquiry links Alexander’s ‘dialogic teaching’ to Nystrand’s ‘dialogic instruction’ 
(N ys t rand, 1997), Matusov’s ‘di alogic pedagogy’ (2009), Well s’ ‘Di al ogi c 
inquiry’ (Wells 1999a, b), Flecha’s ‘dialogic learning’ (2000) and Wegerif’s 
‘Dialogic education’ (2007; 2013). What all of these approaches to teaching have 
in common i s a stress on t he im port ance of teachi ng for di alogue as well as 
teaching through di alogue. In ot her words, the ai m of educati on is not onl y that
the st udent s will l earn som ethi ng that the teacher alread y knows but also t hat t he 
students wil l l earn how t o ask open questions a nd how to l earn new things for 
them sel ves t hrough engaging in di alogic i nqui r y.
Purpos eful: Cl as sroom tal k, performs though open dis cus sions , The ori gin
of thes e crit eri a as has been st at ed b y Al exander (2005, p.14) i s com plex it needs 
more expl anation as well as int erpretat i on. In short , it com bines (i ) a posit ive 
response (ii ) an at tempt t o count er the l ess satis factor y feat ures of mai nst ream
cl assroom int eraction ( for exam ple, t ends not to exploit t he full coll ective 
pot enti al of student s worki ng i n groups) (iii ) distill ati on of ideas from others 

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